Christmas past...

As much of a fuss as I make about Christmas presents (hey, gifts are my Love Language, people), I am always overwhelmed at Christmas at the entirety of the whole thing. Baby, shepherd, angels, wise men, all that stuff, wow. And it's not just a story, it's everything. I mean, it's everything to us! If there hadn't been Christmas, Easter would have been pointless. And if there hadn't been Easter, Christmas would have been useless. And without either of those, life would have no meaning whatsoever. That is a huge circle to wrap our minds around.

So anyway, I like to collect Nativity scenes to remind me about this WHOLE THING that is too big for me to understand. (I admit freely to collecting Advent calendars as well because every little box or door or envelope is like another little present every day in December. Oh, the treasures that await me... See? I need the Nativity scenes around to keep me grounded.) But this is my oldest and most favorite one. (Except for my mostest favorite one that is still at Mom and Dad's house. But that doesn't count.) This one has only been in my house for a few years- it used to be in Grandma Miller's dresser drawer. I don't know how old it is, but for as long as I can remember I would pull this out of the drawer and play with it when I was over at Grandma's. The Wise Men used to defeat the GI Joe's in an epic battle every week I was there. (But I always set it up in the "proper" Nativity sequence when I was done playing, except minus the baby Jesus... he's been MIA from the first time I pulled it out of the drawer. You have to look close to see it's really the angel in there.)

This is so tiny that it fits on a 3X5 card. My first Christmas cross stitch is behind it. This little spot on our fireplace has some great memories!

Christmas with Mom and Dad

My parents came out for an early Christmas visit. We spent a few days shopping and also stalked and trapped our Christmas tree. Andy took a day off work and we had an early Christmas Eve where we hung up our stockings. The next morning we found them stuffed to the brim.



We had a hard and fast rule that this year all presents had to fit into stockings (because somebody's always traveling at Christmas) so we worked hard to be creative and find things that fit. Luckily, candy, jewelry, and notes that lead to a big present all fit into stockings!
Caleb didn't want to get into the fun of his Christmas costume... but you can't really blame him. It's pretty humiliating. But we gave him his presents anyway. That stocking full of bones and toys waiting to be de-fleeced just couldn't go to waste. :)
By the end, we had a great visit, and one worn out puppy.
But it was great to get the Christmas off to an early start. We had a great visit with my parents, and are looking forward to the rest of the season. We're even getting snow this year! About time we had a white Christmas in Oregon!

The Thrill of the Hunt

This year we did something we've wanted to do since living in Oregon but never had the energy, know-how, or truck to do. We drove up to Mount Hood (or somewhere up there) and cut down our own Christmas tree! In Oregon, you can buy a tree permit that allows you to just pick a tree out of the forest and give it a chop. It was awesome and we got a beautiful tree.

David, Diana, Debra (Jason's parents and grandma), Sara, Jason, me, Andy, Don, and Bernie (my parents) all joined the expedition. (Many thanks to all the Wuertz's for leading us up to the "wilderness"... or as much "wilderness" as we can handle in December. (Caleb and Cassie are worn out and sleeping in the trucks)...
On the way we stopped at Little Crater Lake. I've not been to big Crater Lake yet, so this was the clearest water I've ever seen in a lake. I half expected to see a shipwreck at the bottom.


Andy was thrilled to use tools...

And triumphed over his vanquished arboreal prey!

We got some beautiful trees and had a great time...

But of course the fun doesn't end there. We got the tree home and managed to get it upright...

Lights up...

Decorated... (careful!!)

And Caleb shows off the tree (and warms up in his jacket after running around outside all day).
This ornament sums it all up. We heart our tree!!

Thanksgiving at Bounty

A wonderful couple that we know has a "cabin" (read: beautiful second home) in the Washington gorge that they allow friends and family to use. We spent Thanksgiving weekend there. It was a great weekend of relaxing and reconnecting. We got to enjoy nature both when we were out hiking and when we were inside soaking up the amazing view!

Caleb loved it just as much- even more- than we did. He spent pretty much the whole weekend "appreciating the view" (read: begging to go outside)...

Rock Creek ran right in our backyard. We "hiked" (read: stumbled through the underbrush) a few yards downstream to this beautiful waterfall. (We found the real trail on the way back home.)

Here is our Thanksgiving "feast" (read: prepared by others and hydrated for our ingesting pleasure). Note Andy's dessert of cranberry sauce elegantly served alongside our other delecacies. (We had an actual homemade pie later but it didn't last long enough for a picture. (: )

We had such a great weekend. We missed being with family at Thanksgiving, but this was a fabulous way for us to celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so much this year to be thankful for (read: yaay, finally all healthy and happy again!), and Bounty's amazing setting reminded us of all those things that God has blessed us with. Thank you so much, Greg and Wendy, for opening your home to us!

Such a great weekend, in fact, that we completely wore Caleb out with all the fun we were having. (read: awwwwww....)

We're alive. I swear.

Okay, i figured it was time to throw down an update. Better really, really, really late than never, right? Well, I'm not going to lie to you, we've had a pretty tough year. It's November now and we're starting to get back on our feet. If we were to sum up this year, it would be: sick and tired. Andy spent most of the year sick, and I spent most of it tired!

It all started back in February, when Andy got sick. (I'm not going to go into details... that's Andy's part of the whole thing. Myself... I'm sort of tired of telling the story. See? Sick, and tired. :) ) Anyway, something mysterious and dramatic got him sick and put him out of commission for a long time. Doctors had all sorts of theories that ranged from psychosomatic to just psychotic. Whatever it was, it had Andy upside down and me knackered. Because we just didn't know what was happening, I ended up quitting my job at the chiropractor to take care of him. It was a rather unfortunate coincidence that the gym I was massaging out of closed during the exact same week everything hit the ceiling. Rather a bummer. But we pressed on. We spent the Spring at various doctors trying to make heads or tails of it- literally, you can ask Andy about all his tests- and I was juggling (lots) of very loyal clients who followed me to my home and my insurance transcription job. Oh, and taking care of Andy. Again, I spare you the details, but let's just say, I was tired.

We even struck out on vacations this year. Andy was feeling so ill that we cancelled our Hawaii anniversary trip at the literal eleventh hour. Disappointing. And a series of minor and major disasters turned a fun road trip with my dad into me basically spending the summer in Indiana. Okay, not the whole summer. Just the month of July. Okay, not the whole month of July. Just the first thirty days of it. Oh, and the last five days of June. And to top it all off, Andy's trip home was a little bit busted (for me, anyway) by the fact that the dog got so sick I had to cancel appointments to take care of him and make sure he didn't destroy the house! (He came close...)

Now, aren't you having fun reading this cheery, happy blog? Well, I tell you all this (and trust me, there's more to tell- just ask Andy about Life cereal and you'll understand that you've gotten a mere cliff note of the year) so that you can fully appreciate this fact: BUT IT'S ALL OVER. Andy's not sick anymore, in fact, he's feeling better now than he has for a few years. I'm not so busy anymore, in fact, we're scaling back my massage business to make room for even more free time. We're not scrambling between 5 jobs and 20 extracurricular activities. Now we're gearing up for the holidays and fun visits from our families, we're helping to plant a new church in a neighboring town, we're enjoying evenings and weekends together, and we may even go back to Hawaii.

We can be so thankful that God got us through this really crazy, difficult year, and made us appreciate all that we now have- our faith, our health, our families, our friends, our fuzzbucket, and each other. This was probably a year that we will try to forget, but I know that we don't need to remember the nasty details to remember how grateful we were for all that God did for us and taught us going down this rocky road. It was tough, but God is so faithful. He is constant and neverending. It's possible that we needed a little bit of reminding of that. And our world with Him leading us looks so rosy right now, I just can't help but heave a sigh of gratitude. There is always a master plan, and it is always good!

And just so you have something cute to look at, here's the fuzzbucket himself.

He appears, as usual, unphased by his surroundings. Let's hear it for a dog's life!

Happy Spring!!

All right, it is the first day of spring! And, I am way too lazy to color Easter eggs, but here is my usual first-day-of-Spring-but-don't-call-it-vernal-equinox-out-here-or-you'll-have-to-hug-a-tree tradition:

(The kisses aren't part of the tradition. They're just to save the mess when the egg gives up and rolls off the counter.)

If you've never stood an egg on end to celebrate Spring, well, you just don't know the thrill that you are missing. And you'll have to wait a whole year to do it again!

Happy Spring means: TIME TO MOW THE LAWN. And weed those crazy barkdust beds. I have a little thorny weed that apparently found a friend over the winter and had lots of little baby weeds.

Happy Easter means: lots and lots of church services this weekend! I'm going to play the keyboard most of the weekend, but hopefully not be too tired to eat some yummy chocolate eggs and great Easter lunch. And of course, it's a wonderful weekend of reflection and thanksgiving for the amazing sacrifice that God made for us! I'm forever grateful that a little "nobody" like me was worthy of that horrible afternoon on the cross, when Jesus said, "Jozi, I'm doing this for you." What an amazing God has saved us. I can never say thank you enough!

So, Happy Spring, and Happy Easter, everyone!